Day 56: The Herd Strikes Back

Today's title is for Boris Johnson, currently self-quarantining at Number 10 Downing Street.

Do you recall when PlagueBlog did not recommend closing the border to New York State? Well, clearly the governor of Rhode Island is not listening to our recommendations, because she has instituted a house-to-house search for roving New Yorkers, using the National Guard. (This somehow reminds PlagueBlog of the popular theme in Portuguese COVID-19 memes of reconquering a disease-ravaged Spain, or at least Galicia.)

Science Alert suggests that the current coronavirus may be a chimera of a bat coronavirus and a pangolin one.

RaTG13, isolated from a bat of the species Rhinolophus affinis collected in China's Yunan Province, has recently been described as very similar to SARS-CoV-2, with genome sequences identical to 96 percent.

[...]

However, the coronavirus isolated from pangolin is similar at 99 percent in a specific region of the S protein, which corresponds to the 74 amino acids involved in the ACE (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2) receptor binding domain, the one that allows the virus to enter human cells to infect them.

By contrast, the virus RaTG13 isolated from bat R. affinis is highly divergent in this specific region (only 77 percent of similarity). This means that the coronavirus isolated from pangolin is capable of entering human cells whereas the one isolated from bat R. affinis is not.

In addition, these genomic comparisons suggest that the SARS-Cov-2 virus is the result of a recombination between two different viruses, one close to RaTG13 and the other closer to the pangolin virus. In other words, it is a chimera between two pre-existing viruses.

P.S. Our numbers are in: Massachusetts is at 3240 cases, up 823 (34%) over yesterday. There were ten more deaths, mostly of patients over 80, for a total of 35. Sex is a growing mystery to the DPH, as is the source of the infection, with over 800 more in the "under investigation" category. Quest has tested 2,800 more patients, more than three times the next runner up (the state lab). A total of seventeen labs (plus "other") are now performing tests.

The commonwealth has officially extended the tax filing deadline to July 15th, and the Governor is on the case of cities who've banned construction.

Also the US has now topped 100,000 cases and 1,500 deaths. New York State is far in the lead with 44,800 cases and 519 deaths.